The other side of CES: PeanutButter cupcakes and Hassidic Jews

Well we’ve all seen the tablets, the men in suits and the 3D dishwashers and suchlike – but CES has another side. A weirdy side.

A side where Hasssidic Jews set up marketing stalls and there is a peanut butter cupcake on a pedestal. We bring you three weird things from CES 2011.

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1) Hassidic Jews
Of course there’s nothing inherently weird about religious expression, it just comes across as funny in the midst of all those clean-cut techies. The large presence of Hassidic Jews is largely down to B&H Electronics – and is run on those principles.
“Ask how business is going..” the AP reported.. ” and you get this: ‘Baruch Hashem,’ or ‘Blessed be God’ – meaning, roughly, ‘Thanks to God, things are good.'”
[theatlantic.com]

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2) Reese’s Minis
Unveiled on a spotlit pedestal to a drum roll, this small peanut-butter cupcake isn’t actually a piece of technology. But makers Reese say that much technical innovation has gone into making the cupcakes so small. They tell us: “Reese’s Minis reflect the best in creative product innovation and ‘on-the-go’ interfacing with user taste buds. And they solve an important issue for techies, too – their size and unwrapped state makes them ergonomically perfect for one-handed internet surfing or texting.”
[via chipchick]

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3) Hanging iPad Chairs.
See that picture above, that’s what we’re talking about. The chairs hang from the ceiling and have little bendable arm with an iPad dock on them. I think that’s weird.
[via inquistr]

So there are some weird sideshows at CES. But then again, most corporate presentations are pretty weird too if this account of Samsung’s keynote is anything to go by…

“4:12PM Oh, and we found a box of popcorn on our seats — it’s green and marked ZOLL. No, we have no idea what that means.
4:29PM The screens are now an undulating blue cube field. And man — are they ever undulating.”
etcera etera from Engadget‘s live coverage

Hey this is the tech industry, I guess most of us just are kinda weird.

Anna Leach

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